(220) 05-28-2016-to-06-03-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...03-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(221) 06-04-2016-to-06-10-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...10-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(222) 06-11-2016-to-06-17-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...17-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
-----
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.conservativehome.com/pla...ist-ideology-helped-to-drive-this-murder.html
Published: June 18, 2016
20 comments
Jonathan Russell: The Right needs to face up it. Fascist ideology seems to have had a role in this murder.
By Jonathan Russell
Last updated: June 18, 2016 at 8:51 am
Jonathan Russell is Head of Policy at the Quilliam Foundation.
If you think we don’t have a problem, you’re not going to agree with much of what I’m about to write. At first glance, that problem may seem to be the murder of 49 gay people by Omar Mateen in Orlando, the apparent murder of Jo Coxby by Tommy Mair, and the threat that we all fear from extremism and terrorism. But it’s not. The problem is how Mateen and Mair got to the point of committing their respective terrorist acts.
Let’s not take agency away from them: they are to blame for their cowardice and their violence. But let’s think also about how the world has reacted, and how it is related to the general atmosphere that prevents prevention.
Omar Mateen is a jihadist terrorist. He showed sustained interest in and support for Islamist extremism, and then pledged allegiance to ISIS before killing his victims, chosen because of their lifestyle. The mainstream media reaction has reflected this – though there has certainly been debate about how ISIS had no command and control in this case; and how Mateen may have been gay, mentally ill, non-devout, or all three – all, seemingly, in an attempt to disassociate a killer from the ideology that motivated him and, it seems, to disassociate the act from Islam.
This is well-intentioned rubbish at best, and machiavellian disingenuity at worst, and stops us from preventing terrorism. Struggling with the tension between your natural sexuality and your exclusivist ideology may indeed push you towards the violent purification of Istishhad (martyrdom or, etymologically, a testament of faith); mental illness may indeed leave you vulnerable to the clarion Ramadan jihad call of ISIS’s Mohammed al-Adnani, and being non-devout may stop you from reading the abundant theological refutations of Islamism’s ideological manichaeism.
But if we cannot face up to our own imperfect societal attitudes towards LGBT equality, and we cannot ask Muslims to do the same, then we will be unable to make progress towards prevention. We must accept that Islamist extremism is an interpretation of Islam. Yes, a highly politicised, ahistorical, and theologically dubious one – but related one nonetheless. This is a difficult conversation to have but, we need it to have it. Without it, we’d be more likely to ban guns and introduce new legislation to remove the rights of potential criminals (according to the Right of the Right) and build safe spaces for the likes of Mateen so that they don’t see gay men kissing (according to the Left of the Left) than we would tackle the innate homophobia and other social ills present in the Islamist ideology.
Tommy Mair should be categorised as an extreme right-wing terrorist – for he killed an innocent MP while repeatedly shouted “Britain first”, having shown a sustained interest in far-right, white supremacist and nationalist causes. The mainstream media has, however, had some difficulty in using the T-word, preferring instead to focus on Mair’s mental health and ignoring his history and behaviour, and giving Britain First, the extreme right-wing group to which Mair may have referred, airtime that it would otherwise not have had.
This again lets us down. It is the ideology and narrative of such groups as Britain First that creates an atmosphere in which people like Mair can commit crimes, and it is the normalisation of their anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-establishment worldview by other political groups and movements that have the capacity to persuade vulnerable people that violence is the only viable option. If we focus solely on the mental health of Mair, we won’t be honest about right-wing extremism, and we won’t be able to improve social cohesion or prevent terrorism.
It also lets us down in other ways. By not calling Mair’s actions ‘terrorism’, the media has been inconsistent in a way that will fuel Muslim communities’ perception that Muslims are treated differently. A cursory look at my Twitter timeline finds my Muslim friends retweeting Islamist accounts that have placed this fact within their micro-victimhood narrative – and also within their macro-‘West at war with Islam’ narrative. My friends are not extremist, and are justified in their chagrin towards media inconsistency, but it is such malaise that violent Islamists are so adept at exploiting.
I have no doubt that Mair will be charged under anti-terrorism legislation, for the law of the land is indeed supreme. But the narrative will have been set by then. For now, at least, professional journalists have as significant a power as citizen journalists in shaping this narrative, and with this power comes a responsibility to be consistent.
In social cohesion, as in counter-extremism, the state is only one of the players. Media and civil society are just as important. We must have a difficult conversation and name, isolate and shame the Islamist spectrum for its opposition to our universal human rights, and for the covering fire it provides to jihadist terrorism. And we must also have a difficult conversation and name, isolate and shame the Far Right for its opposition to our universal human rights, and for the covering fire it provides to the likes of Mair.
We must do both of these things, because they feed off each other; because one difficult conversation allows us to have the other, and because we will not be able to truly prevent extremism in our societies without doing so. And we must work with the media to push for consistency and to have these difficult conversations – otherwise we will not be able to preserve our liberal democracy.
----
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Stuart416 35p · 6 hours ago
" and giving Britain First, the extreme right-wing group to which Mair may have referred"
Britain First, is not an extreme right -wing group, it is a bunch of people who want the muslim swamping of this country to stop, they want FGM to stop.
"Tommy Mair is an extreme right-wing terrorist" again no, according to the press he was reading left wing propaganda, someone who was by reports mentally ill.
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HF001 100p · 5 hours ago
Why are Con Home Publishing such unfounded speculation?
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Byronholcroft 59p · 5 hours ago
What revolting piffle. Mair is a lunatic with no connections to the justified grievances or the constitutional procedures of the Leave campaign. In the absence of such a connection you and the left - whose odious work you are doing - are reduced to no more than guilt by association. Do you confuse Olaf Palme, Mendes-France or Clement Atlee with Stalin? No? Then why for one second suggest that this marginal and afflicted individual was anything to do with the alliance of mainstream opinion which questions the EU? We are made up of Tories, classical liberals and social democrats - the best, I put it to you - of all the central traditions of British politics. The left prattles today about "hysteria" and "vitriol". Who jolly well injected it into the campaign if not them? Who spent the ITV debate berating an individual and personalising the attack? Who has lined up senior public servants to compromise their impartiality with obviously exaggerated warnings? Who has lied and squirmed their way through the debate - see Vaizey before Neil; see Osborne in the same position. No, sir; we won't wear it. We didn't kill anyone and to suggest that our legitimate case is compromised by this tragic, brutal death is sick, despicable and utterly false. If you're so keen to work for the hard left - smearing the faintest cry of besieged patriotism with the mud of extremism - then go and spew your misrepresentations out on some other site.
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herbxxx 1p · 5 hours ago
The truth is there are many things we don't know about Tommy,including whether he meant the organisation Britain first or simply meant that mp's should think about their electorate first before anyone else.
The article seems to hide from the word immigration, and this is where the problem lies.
People at the bottom feel ignored as their standard of living drops.
Both labour and conservatives and liberals have ignored the issue and it's consequences.
I don't condone or support any kind of violence on any side,but there has to be much,much more of a solution to this issue.
A minimum of rapid increases in housing,hospitals,gp's and dentists to reflect better the needs of communities.
Rather than simply calling anyone who disagrees with you right wing extremists.
That plays straight into the hands of the real extremists who understand there are a lot of people who feel agreeved at unfettered immigration.
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Connaught 84p · 5 hours ago
Only someone suffering from a severe mental disorder could have inflicted such terrible injuries on a fellow human being. The man is ill and needs help. The terrible damage he has inflicted on the Cox family cannot be undone but we can all applaud Jo Cox's dedication to duty whatever our political persuasion! The pressures will be on her husband to stand in the by-election but when making his decision he must have the long term well being of the children front and centre.
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sferoflex 51p · 5 hours ago
Yes but you see things have happened without our agreement or our being consulted.
LGBT happens to be against my own religion (Catholic) yet I am expected to agree warmly with all it demands. I have been already thrown off this site for questioning it.
Muslim immigration - which I have seen in Bradford and Batley - did not cause integration. It caused two rival groups. Yes, there was violence between them too - not very violent but enough to notice.
When the MP delivers the party line on the EU and immigration and it happens to conflict with that of a lot of young men in the area, what else do you expect? It demands a lot of very hard work, especially in schools, to bring about a reconciliation between Muslims and Christians. It can be done, but it is very hard.
If you stick your hand into a wasps' nest, you get stung.
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RobertaWoods 48p · 4 hours ago
This writer trots out the tired old mantra of 'Muslim victimhood' when as far as I know there were no Muslim victims in either incident. It is bad enough when this sort of apologia follows an Islam related atrocity but what the hell has this to do with this latest murder committed by a supposed psychopath? Once again the apologists seem to be equating mass slayings in the name of Islam with the much rarer phenomena of supposed 'white supremacist' killings. If this latest murderer had 'white supremacist' or 'Islamophobic' leanings why would he have picked a white, presumably non-Muslim target?
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AndrewWood1 76p · 4 hours ago
I am half-German, my grandparents were lovely people but they came from that part of society that supported Hitler and the Nazi party. I never really understood how Germany allowed itself to be led into disaster by the Nazi’s and my grandparents never explained. I also never understood how the many Brits were attracted to fascism and communism in the 1930’s. But I understand the 1930’s better now as I see the echoes of those times today. I saw a group of Britain First leaders and supporters walking around the 5th May count at the Excel centre in East London, they reminded me of the Sturmabteilung in 1930’s Germany, the same air of menace and intimidation.
I have been reading a lot on social media this last week and it deeply worries me. The tone of the debate, the unwillingness to deal with facts, the unwillingness (indeed the active opposition) to reading opposing views, the lies peddled by some writers (I wonder do they even believe what they write), the echo chamber effect, the unwillingness to engage with difficult issues nor accept that people hold different views for valid reasons. The desire to not read anything over a few sentences long!
If Britain does not learn that tone matters, that facts are facts, however unwelcome, that critical reasoning matters, that you sometimes need to read things you do not agree with, that societies can fail through ignorance, then this country will never be a success in or out of the EU.
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fsj58 1p · 4 hours ago
If we put the Jo Cox murder to one side for a moment, there is a bell shaped curve around the way an individual vents their sense of being wronged. We have as a society created expectations, rules and systems to encourage people to express their complaints and frustrations. The ruling class who create these rules and systems tend to be reasonable people and live in a bubble of other reasonable people. There are a minority though of individuals who are through their upbringing or other reasons do not have this social balance or maturity, plus a group who have varying degrees of 'mental illness'. I quote this as ultimately the cut off for what is mental illness is society determined. What is very clear is there is a continuum. e.g. from passionate about something, to an overvalued idea, to a fixed ideation with a little bit of insight, to no insight and ultimately psychosis. Overlaid and interlinked are those with various 'personality disorders', again with a spectrum from 'normality'.
We have seen an outpouring of grief for Jo Cox, understandably so, but it is a much broader issue. Teachers, social workers, health care professionals experience threats and abuse on a daily basis and have higher murder rates. It just doesn't get reported in the same way. What fuels a lot of the abuse they receive are the systems of access and complaint that have been put in place for the vast majority of reasonable people. What I see in these different areas though is that a small minority of people cause disproportionate damage, with no good systems to stop this happening. Now this may not be directly relevant to the Jo Cox case, but it will be to the enormous amount of abuse of MPs that is coming to light as a result of it. And to local people not wanting to serve on town and parish councils because of vexatious and angry residents, or teachers and threatening parents, or GPs writing prescriptions and sick notes to avoid threats and complaints.
The balance between individual rights and collective responsibility. How do we design it to ensure that the troublemakers at the far end of the bell shaped curve are contained.
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EMTurner 137p · 4 hours ago
We don't at this stage know the motivation of either killer. This is premature.
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formercon 95p · 4 hours ago
These lone nutters like Matan, Mair and Anders Breivik will always be about, feeding off propaganda which will be available, even if it's driven underground.
How far do you want to go in stopping people from believing the central tenets of their religion, because a few loonies use it as a reason to carry out their crazy actions? It's like banning alcohol because of the behaviour of some alcoholics. Denyng people freedom of belief and thought.
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Caleyman 93p · 4 hours ago
This claim the Fascism is a right wing idealogy should always be challenged. For instance the BNP were no more than White Power Socialists. Take away the anti-immigrant rhetoric and examine the remaining policies. What is left are the policies of the Left.
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london1984 24p · 4 hours ago
Even if we can say that he is a fascist we do not know why he committed this murder.
It is the job of the courts to discover the truth. We should allow justice to take its course.
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Larkworthywill 77p · 4 hours ago
Britain First is the latest incarnation of the Neo Fascist far right, it is an insidious organisations propagating its poison largely through social media. A member of my family works as an adult literacy teacher, many of her students have "shared" poisonous and inflammatory items originating from BF, apparently unaware of the nature of the organisation but none the less accepting the "truth" of the story's.
One of the problems with social media is that it can be exploited by extremists to propagate myths about immigration, Islam, refugees etc which are then accepted as " fact" by those unable or unwilling to look at other sources of information.
I hope their current scrutiny will reveal there true nature to those taken in by their propaganda.
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Perfidiously 93p · 4 hours ago
The difficulty with the difficult conversation is that the rules of engagement are different.
We can openly state that Islamist fanaticism/terrorism is the product of Western imperialist capitalism and liberal interventionism. It is America’s fault. Blair, Bush. It is Israel’s fault, as a direct consequence of state directed murder: We threaten culture, identity and socio-economic wellbeing.
It is our own fault and understandable that the dispossessed and the oppressed rise up and take arms against us.
If, however, we suggest that the rise of right wing extremism is a direct product of mass immigration then the rules of engagement automatically close down the discussion. The rules of a perceived social consensus shut down the difficult conversation that might also suggest that threats to culture, identity and socio-economic wellbeing also apply. The suggestion that factors such as multiculturalism, which is arguably a ‘left wing’ orthodoxy, cause the problem is unacceptable: It is our own fault. Except when it isn’t.
Violence, terror, murderous fanaticism. Equally and profoundly wrong but in the causal factors that lead to atrocity some are seen as more equal than others. The rules of engagement in conversation are different.
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GlynneT 102p · 3 hours ago
The terrible murder of Jo was apparently a one off, carried out it seems by an individual with serious mental health problem. But that is for a court to decide, as it is to prove what his motives where and whether or not they were political. - because despite what is currently being claimed that is far from clear.
If we want to look for fascists - try the people who organise to block debate silence free speech and actively gather to attack individuals in their homes or while out enjoying Sunday lunch, remember the mobs organised by the Stop the War Coalition and the threats and attacks they made on people who were prepared to stand up for a different point of view. - yes these are left wing agitators and activists but they also exhibit all the hallmarks of Fascist behavior.
I think the Left with its battalions of thugs and with its spokespeople and politicians using the shield of political correctness to howl down anything they disprove of are much more dangerous to our society and way of life than a lone mentally deranged individual.
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2 replies · active 2 hours ago
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...03-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(221) 06-04-2016-to-06-10-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...10-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(222) 06-11-2016-to-06-17-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...17-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
-----
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.conservativehome.com/pla...ist-ideology-helped-to-drive-this-murder.html
Published: June 18, 2016
20 comments
Jonathan Russell: The Right needs to face up it. Fascist ideology seems to have had a role in this murder.
By Jonathan Russell
Last updated: June 18, 2016 at 8:51 am
Jonathan Russell is Head of Policy at the Quilliam Foundation.
If you think we don’t have a problem, you’re not going to agree with much of what I’m about to write. At first glance, that problem may seem to be the murder of 49 gay people by Omar Mateen in Orlando, the apparent murder of Jo Coxby by Tommy Mair, and the threat that we all fear from extremism and terrorism. But it’s not. The problem is how Mateen and Mair got to the point of committing their respective terrorist acts.
Let’s not take agency away from them: they are to blame for their cowardice and their violence. But let’s think also about how the world has reacted, and how it is related to the general atmosphere that prevents prevention.
Omar Mateen is a jihadist terrorist. He showed sustained interest in and support for Islamist extremism, and then pledged allegiance to ISIS before killing his victims, chosen because of their lifestyle. The mainstream media reaction has reflected this – though there has certainly been debate about how ISIS had no command and control in this case; and how Mateen may have been gay, mentally ill, non-devout, or all three – all, seemingly, in an attempt to disassociate a killer from the ideology that motivated him and, it seems, to disassociate the act from Islam.
This is well-intentioned rubbish at best, and machiavellian disingenuity at worst, and stops us from preventing terrorism. Struggling with the tension between your natural sexuality and your exclusivist ideology may indeed push you towards the violent purification of Istishhad (martyrdom or, etymologically, a testament of faith); mental illness may indeed leave you vulnerable to the clarion Ramadan jihad call of ISIS’s Mohammed al-Adnani, and being non-devout may stop you from reading the abundant theological refutations of Islamism’s ideological manichaeism.
But if we cannot face up to our own imperfect societal attitudes towards LGBT equality, and we cannot ask Muslims to do the same, then we will be unable to make progress towards prevention. We must accept that Islamist extremism is an interpretation of Islam. Yes, a highly politicised, ahistorical, and theologically dubious one – but related one nonetheless. This is a difficult conversation to have but, we need it to have it. Without it, we’d be more likely to ban guns and introduce new legislation to remove the rights of potential criminals (according to the Right of the Right) and build safe spaces for the likes of Mateen so that they don’t see gay men kissing (according to the Left of the Left) than we would tackle the innate homophobia and other social ills present in the Islamist ideology.
Tommy Mair should be categorised as an extreme right-wing terrorist – for he killed an innocent MP while repeatedly shouted “Britain first”, having shown a sustained interest in far-right, white supremacist and nationalist causes. The mainstream media has, however, had some difficulty in using the T-word, preferring instead to focus on Mair’s mental health and ignoring his history and behaviour, and giving Britain First, the extreme right-wing group to which Mair may have referred, airtime that it would otherwise not have had.
This again lets us down. It is the ideology and narrative of such groups as Britain First that creates an atmosphere in which people like Mair can commit crimes, and it is the normalisation of their anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-establishment worldview by other political groups and movements that have the capacity to persuade vulnerable people that violence is the only viable option. If we focus solely on the mental health of Mair, we won’t be honest about right-wing extremism, and we won’t be able to improve social cohesion or prevent terrorism.
It also lets us down in other ways. By not calling Mair’s actions ‘terrorism’, the media has been inconsistent in a way that will fuel Muslim communities’ perception that Muslims are treated differently. A cursory look at my Twitter timeline finds my Muslim friends retweeting Islamist accounts that have placed this fact within their micro-victimhood narrative – and also within their macro-‘West at war with Islam’ narrative. My friends are not extremist, and are justified in their chagrin towards media inconsistency, but it is such malaise that violent Islamists are so adept at exploiting.
I have no doubt that Mair will be charged under anti-terrorism legislation, for the law of the land is indeed supreme. But the narrative will have been set by then. For now, at least, professional journalists have as significant a power as citizen journalists in shaping this narrative, and with this power comes a responsibility to be consistent.
In social cohesion, as in counter-extremism, the state is only one of the players. Media and civil society are just as important. We must have a difficult conversation and name, isolate and shame the Islamist spectrum for its opposition to our universal human rights, and for the covering fire it provides to jihadist terrorism. And we must also have a difficult conversation and name, isolate and shame the Far Right for its opposition to our universal human rights, and for the covering fire it provides to the likes of Mair.
We must do both of these things, because they feed off each other; because one difficult conversation allows us to have the other, and because we will not be able to truly prevent extremism in our societies without doing so. And we must work with the media to push for consistency and to have these difficult conversations – otherwise we will not be able to preserve our liberal democracy.
----
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Stuart416 35p · 6 hours ago
" and giving Britain First, the extreme right-wing group to which Mair may have referred"
Britain First, is not an extreme right -wing group, it is a bunch of people who want the muslim swamping of this country to stop, they want FGM to stop.
"Tommy Mair is an extreme right-wing terrorist" again no, according to the press he was reading left wing propaganda, someone who was by reports mentally ill.
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HF001 100p · 5 hours ago
Why are Con Home Publishing such unfounded speculation?
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Byronholcroft 59p · 5 hours ago
What revolting piffle. Mair is a lunatic with no connections to the justified grievances or the constitutional procedures of the Leave campaign. In the absence of such a connection you and the left - whose odious work you are doing - are reduced to no more than guilt by association. Do you confuse Olaf Palme, Mendes-France or Clement Atlee with Stalin? No? Then why for one second suggest that this marginal and afflicted individual was anything to do with the alliance of mainstream opinion which questions the EU? We are made up of Tories, classical liberals and social democrats - the best, I put it to you - of all the central traditions of British politics. The left prattles today about "hysteria" and "vitriol". Who jolly well injected it into the campaign if not them? Who spent the ITV debate berating an individual and personalising the attack? Who has lined up senior public servants to compromise their impartiality with obviously exaggerated warnings? Who has lied and squirmed their way through the debate - see Vaizey before Neil; see Osborne in the same position. No, sir; we won't wear it. We didn't kill anyone and to suggest that our legitimate case is compromised by this tragic, brutal death is sick, despicable and utterly false. If you're so keen to work for the hard left - smearing the faintest cry of besieged patriotism with the mud of extremism - then go and spew your misrepresentations out on some other site.
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herbxxx 1p · 5 hours ago
The truth is there are many things we don't know about Tommy,including whether he meant the organisation Britain first or simply meant that mp's should think about their electorate first before anyone else.
The article seems to hide from the word immigration, and this is where the problem lies.
People at the bottom feel ignored as their standard of living drops.
Both labour and conservatives and liberals have ignored the issue and it's consequences.
I don't condone or support any kind of violence on any side,but there has to be much,much more of a solution to this issue.
A minimum of rapid increases in housing,hospitals,gp's and dentists to reflect better the needs of communities.
Rather than simply calling anyone who disagrees with you right wing extremists.
That plays straight into the hands of the real extremists who understand there are a lot of people who feel agreeved at unfettered immigration.
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Connaught 84p · 5 hours ago
Only someone suffering from a severe mental disorder could have inflicted such terrible injuries on a fellow human being. The man is ill and needs help. The terrible damage he has inflicted on the Cox family cannot be undone but we can all applaud Jo Cox's dedication to duty whatever our political persuasion! The pressures will be on her husband to stand in the by-election but when making his decision he must have the long term well being of the children front and centre.
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sferoflex 51p · 5 hours ago
Yes but you see things have happened without our agreement or our being consulted.
LGBT happens to be against my own religion (Catholic) yet I am expected to agree warmly with all it demands. I have been already thrown off this site for questioning it.
Muslim immigration - which I have seen in Bradford and Batley - did not cause integration. It caused two rival groups. Yes, there was violence between them too - not very violent but enough to notice.
When the MP delivers the party line on the EU and immigration and it happens to conflict with that of a lot of young men in the area, what else do you expect? It demands a lot of very hard work, especially in schools, to bring about a reconciliation between Muslims and Christians. It can be done, but it is very hard.
If you stick your hand into a wasps' nest, you get stung.
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RobertaWoods 48p · 4 hours ago
This writer trots out the tired old mantra of 'Muslim victimhood' when as far as I know there were no Muslim victims in either incident. It is bad enough when this sort of apologia follows an Islam related atrocity but what the hell has this to do with this latest murder committed by a supposed psychopath? Once again the apologists seem to be equating mass slayings in the name of Islam with the much rarer phenomena of supposed 'white supremacist' killings. If this latest murderer had 'white supremacist' or 'Islamophobic' leanings why would he have picked a white, presumably non-Muslim target?
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AndrewWood1 76p · 4 hours ago
I am half-German, my grandparents were lovely people but they came from that part of society that supported Hitler and the Nazi party. I never really understood how Germany allowed itself to be led into disaster by the Nazi’s and my grandparents never explained. I also never understood how the many Brits were attracted to fascism and communism in the 1930’s. But I understand the 1930’s better now as I see the echoes of those times today. I saw a group of Britain First leaders and supporters walking around the 5th May count at the Excel centre in East London, they reminded me of the Sturmabteilung in 1930’s Germany, the same air of menace and intimidation.
I have been reading a lot on social media this last week and it deeply worries me. The tone of the debate, the unwillingness to deal with facts, the unwillingness (indeed the active opposition) to reading opposing views, the lies peddled by some writers (I wonder do they even believe what they write), the echo chamber effect, the unwillingness to engage with difficult issues nor accept that people hold different views for valid reasons. The desire to not read anything over a few sentences long!
If Britain does not learn that tone matters, that facts are facts, however unwelcome, that critical reasoning matters, that you sometimes need to read things you do not agree with, that societies can fail through ignorance, then this country will never be a success in or out of the EU.
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fsj58 1p · 4 hours ago
If we put the Jo Cox murder to one side for a moment, there is a bell shaped curve around the way an individual vents their sense of being wronged. We have as a society created expectations, rules and systems to encourage people to express their complaints and frustrations. The ruling class who create these rules and systems tend to be reasonable people and live in a bubble of other reasonable people. There are a minority though of individuals who are through their upbringing or other reasons do not have this social balance or maturity, plus a group who have varying degrees of 'mental illness'. I quote this as ultimately the cut off for what is mental illness is society determined. What is very clear is there is a continuum. e.g. from passionate about something, to an overvalued idea, to a fixed ideation with a little bit of insight, to no insight and ultimately psychosis. Overlaid and interlinked are those with various 'personality disorders', again with a spectrum from 'normality'.
We have seen an outpouring of grief for Jo Cox, understandably so, but it is a much broader issue. Teachers, social workers, health care professionals experience threats and abuse on a daily basis and have higher murder rates. It just doesn't get reported in the same way. What fuels a lot of the abuse they receive are the systems of access and complaint that have been put in place for the vast majority of reasonable people. What I see in these different areas though is that a small minority of people cause disproportionate damage, with no good systems to stop this happening. Now this may not be directly relevant to the Jo Cox case, but it will be to the enormous amount of abuse of MPs that is coming to light as a result of it. And to local people not wanting to serve on town and parish councils because of vexatious and angry residents, or teachers and threatening parents, or GPs writing prescriptions and sick notes to avoid threats and complaints.
The balance between individual rights and collective responsibility. How do we design it to ensure that the troublemakers at the far end of the bell shaped curve are contained.
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EMTurner 137p · 4 hours ago
We don't at this stage know the motivation of either killer. This is premature.
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formercon 95p · 4 hours ago
These lone nutters like Matan, Mair and Anders Breivik will always be about, feeding off propaganda which will be available, even if it's driven underground.
How far do you want to go in stopping people from believing the central tenets of their religion, because a few loonies use it as a reason to carry out their crazy actions? It's like banning alcohol because of the behaviour of some alcoholics. Denyng people freedom of belief and thought.
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1 reply · active 3 hours ago
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Caleyman 93p · 4 hours ago
This claim the Fascism is a right wing idealogy should always be challenged. For instance the BNP were no more than White Power Socialists. Take away the anti-immigrant rhetoric and examine the remaining policies. What is left are the policies of the Left.
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2 replies · active 2 hours ago
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london1984 24p · 4 hours ago
Even if we can say that he is a fascist we do not know why he committed this murder.
It is the job of the courts to discover the truth. We should allow justice to take its course.
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Larkworthywill 77p · 4 hours ago
Britain First is the latest incarnation of the Neo Fascist far right, it is an insidious organisations propagating its poison largely through social media. A member of my family works as an adult literacy teacher, many of her students have "shared" poisonous and inflammatory items originating from BF, apparently unaware of the nature of the organisation but none the less accepting the "truth" of the story's.
One of the problems with social media is that it can be exploited by extremists to propagate myths about immigration, Islam, refugees etc which are then accepted as " fact" by those unable or unwilling to look at other sources of information.
I hope their current scrutiny will reveal there true nature to those taken in by their propaganda.
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Perfidiously 93p · 4 hours ago
The difficulty with the difficult conversation is that the rules of engagement are different.
We can openly state that Islamist fanaticism/terrorism is the product of Western imperialist capitalism and liberal interventionism. It is America’s fault. Blair, Bush. It is Israel’s fault, as a direct consequence of state directed murder: We threaten culture, identity and socio-economic wellbeing.
It is our own fault and understandable that the dispossessed and the oppressed rise up and take arms against us.
If, however, we suggest that the rise of right wing extremism is a direct product of mass immigration then the rules of engagement automatically close down the discussion. The rules of a perceived social consensus shut down the difficult conversation that might also suggest that threats to culture, identity and socio-economic wellbeing also apply. The suggestion that factors such as multiculturalism, which is arguably a ‘left wing’ orthodoxy, cause the problem is unacceptable: It is our own fault. Except when it isn’t.
Violence, terror, murderous fanaticism. Equally and profoundly wrong but in the causal factors that lead to atrocity some are seen as more equal than others. The rules of engagement in conversation are different.
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GlynneT 102p · 3 hours ago
The terrible murder of Jo was apparently a one off, carried out it seems by an individual with serious mental health problem. But that is for a court to decide, as it is to prove what his motives where and whether or not they were political. - because despite what is currently being claimed that is far from clear.
If we want to look for fascists - try the people who organise to block debate silence free speech and actively gather to attack individuals in their homes or while out enjoying Sunday lunch, remember the mobs organised by the Stop the War Coalition and the threats and attacks they made on people who were prepared to stand up for a different point of view. - yes these are left wing agitators and activists but they also exhibit all the hallmarks of Fascist behavior.
I think the Left with its battalions of thugs and with its spokespeople and politicians using the shield of political correctness to howl down anything they disprove of are much more dangerous to our society and way of life than a lone mentally deranged individual.
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2 replies · active 2 hours ago
Washington views New Delhi as a balancing factor in its pivot to the Asia-Pacific strategy. Its supply of nuclear technology is to enhance India’s deterrence capability is to put China in check.
